HAMPDEN, Maine — After a tumultuous year with Councilor Carol Duprey at the helm, members of the Hampden Town Council elected a new mayor and deputy mayor Monday night.
Councilor David Ryder was the unanimous pick for the council’s top spot during the annual election for mayor. Councilor William Shakespeare won the deputy mayor spot in a runoff against Councilor Greg Sirois in a 5-2 split.
Also during the first meeting of the new year, Town Clerk Denise Hodsdon swore in the four members who won their races in Hampden’s four voting districts. They are Stephen Wilde in District I, District II’s Philip “Terry” McAvoy, District III’s Dennis Marble and Ryder in District IV.
The mayoral election brought to an end a year that has seen a great deal of controversy.
Perhaps chief among those flaps were a series of negative campaign robocalls targeting Councilor Ivan McPike and Councilor Jean Lawlis made by a political action committee formed by the mayor and her husband, Rep. Brian Duprey. The calls blamed the two councilors — both of whom lost their reelection bids on Nov. 4 — for a 10 percent increase in property taxes over the last two years.
The robocalls did not sit well with most other council members and led to dueling OpEd pieces written by Shakespeare and the former mayor that further fueled the fire.
Duprey was cleared of breaching the town’s Code of Ethics because she made the robocalls as a citizen and not in her capacity as mayor. However, members took a 6-1 vote of no confidence in her ability to lead them — with Duprey casting the lone vote in support of her performance as mayor — on Oct. 20.
Despite being asked to step down from the post after the no-confidence vote, Duprey declined and said she had done nothing wrong. Her fellow councilors had no way of compelling her to step down. She served in that role until January, when the next election for mayor took place.
The robocall flap was not the only controversy that distracted town councilors in 2014.
There were disputes over whether to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of regular council meetings, whether to continue funding Saturday Community Connector bus runs, whether to accept and display an antique map donated by one of their own members and whether councilors should give up their pay as a way of sharing the town’s budget pain.